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I was watching the pilot of Young Sheldon on Hulu the other evening when it had a personally poignant moment which struck me through and through.
The idiosyncratic, eidetic memory having, polymath genius child Sheldon Cooper was sitting at the dinner table commencing grace when he removed his mitten from his left hand and held his father's hand for the first time.
It made me remember the less than optimal relationship I had with my own father which I tried to amend in the last 20 or so years of his life.
The innocence of that germophobe child's motivation contrasted with my personal motivations as I recalled the first time I held my father's hand ... which was the night that he died at Richland Memorial Hospital.
As he was slipping slowly from us under the influence of the morphine protocol being given to prevent oxygen hunger I made it a point to talk to him and tell him that he was the best dad in the world and I held his hand a number of times in those few final ensuing hours to that point where the monitors began to indicate the end was imminent.
Later, as they were disconnecting the various lines and such so that the Hubert and Wilson could take him to the funeral home in Wagener I told him for the first time after he was gone that I loved him — having been all cried out over the ordeal which had been those past few days.
So when the child at the dinner table removed his glove and took his fathers hand all those thoughts of me holding my dad's hand came crashing down in a brief tearful deluge of memory which replays through my soul from time to time.
The moral of the story is to be sure and tread softly around the hearts of those you love because you don't know how long they will be with you nor just how bad the angst and sorrow of you missing them will be after they're gone.
It's one of those profound things which stirs deeply through my conscience during those times I collect my thoughts and ponder the meaning of life.